The number of couples in the Republic willing to enter the battered old institution of marriage appears to be on the increase. In 1998, 16,783 couples took the plunge, and the rate continued to rise in the first half of last year. This represents a significant turn-around from the general fall in Irish marriage rates: from a high of almost 22,000 in 1980, to a low of 15,604 in 1995. (By contrast, in Northern Ireland, marriage rates continue to decline, from a high of over 10,000 in 1987, to 7,826 in 1998.)
Could this increase in marriage rates in the Republic have anything to do with the advent of divorce, followed by second marriages? Unfortunately, this cannot be ascertained, because there are no specific statistics for second marriages. What is definite, however, is that, in tandem with the rosy picture of more couples walking down the aisle, the figures are high for the parting of the ways.
In last five months of 1998, 718 divorces and 274 judicial separations were granted (out of a total of 1,261 divorce applications and 546 separation applications). In the first three months of last year, 573 divorces and 250 judicial separations were granted, again from a much larger total of applications. (In Northern Ireland divorce rates are rising also, from 1,514 in 1987 to 2,459 in 1998.) We still have a way to go to catch up on the US and the UK, where between a quarter and a third of marriages end in divorce, according to Dr Alan Carr, head of the Psychology Department at UCD, who also works as a family therapist at the Clanwilliam Institute in Dublin.
Problems with communication, sexual problems, infidelity, violence, depression, parenting issues, and alcohol and drug abuse are most of the features common to today's ailing marriages. That's according to Yvonne Jacobson, co-ordinator of research and development at the Marriage and Relationship Counselling Service (MRCS) in Dublin, who is in the process of compiling the service's statistics for 1999. As with 1998, problems with communication and sex are the two most common case scenarios, followed by parenting issues.
The only problem which appears more frequently in 1999 than in 1998 is female infidelity. While this increase is tiny, a much more significant change has been the number of individual men who are approaching the service for counselling (up from 8 per cent of the total in 1998, to 14 per cent in 1999). The average age of both men and women is late 30s.
Contentious issues that are cropping up for couples include housework, notes Ruth Barror, chief executive of MRCS: "There is still a difficulty in dividing out the tasks and moving away from the assumption that women carry the ultimate responsibility. On the other hand, women find it hard to delegate, and let the man do things his way." Ed McHale is a family therapist and director of the Clanwilliam Institute, where he notices changes in couples' problems: "When we opened in 1982 the problems reflected more traditional family structures in which women were invariably oppressed. Now, while we still see some women with unrecognised disadvantages, we also see men who feel confused and disempowered." He cites the growing pressures of modern life on couples as a major stress factor: "Men and women both have careers, and the pressure of this, along with the responsibility of young children, is enormous. For the relationship to survive in a healthy way requires effort and commitment. When people become emotionally disengaged the possibility of affairs increases."
Margaret Roche of Aim Family Services, a counselling and drop-in centre in Dublin, points out that other changing factors in marriage and relationship breakdown include the difficulty of dealing with disruptive children, an increase in men seeking child custody, and more women in their 40s and 50s deciding to leave their husbands.
Colm O'Connor, director of the Cork Marriage Centre, is completing "a typology of distressed marriages", one of 13 new research projects that will be funded by the Department of Social, Community and Family Affairs: "The bulk of our clients are between 30 and 45 years old, who have got through the initial years of marriage and having children, and are now looking at their lives and wondering if their needs are being met." Domestic abuse - mostly of women - is still a major problem.
Meanwhile, the Family Mediation Service for separating or divorcing couples has expanded to 10 centres and a staff of 31, dealing with 1,026 couples last year (in 1997 it was 487). There is a four-week-long waiting list for the service in Dublin; slightly less outside the capital. Its co-ordinator, Mary Lloyd, notes that a total of 60 per cent of clients reached full agreement on all issues (parenting, property, tax and finances): "We find couples who came to us five years ago to negotiate a separation are now coming back because they are looking for a divorce and will have to change the arrangement."
Even with the new option of divorce, however, the main issue for couples remains the children. Despite what might immediately spring to mind, Mary Lloyd notes that money tends not to be contentious.
